


Do Fetches Dream?

by luxdancer



Category: Changeling: The Lost, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Backstory, LARP, RP, noir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxdancer/pseuds/luxdancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A backstory about the confrontation between my Ogre Gristlegrinder, V, and her fetch (who was/is honestly a good person despite being the construct of a True Fae).</p><p>Minor violence, mentions of cannibalism.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Do fetches dream?_

Her hair is tangled between my fingers like wisps of golden smoke, I clench my fist, feel the tension as the ends pull on her scalp. The barrel of my .22 is pressed up against the back of her head, execution-style, my finger caressing the trigger like a long lost lover. 

It's strange that a single moment, a single choice, a single mistake, could change everything you ever believed about your life, about the world - and that you just have to deal with the consequences, so you better damn well make the right one.

Outside, the rain drums down on the streets in steady, relentless sheets, washing away the dirt and the blood that's been spilled in this city. I can smell it, especially the blood, which calls to me the sweet and cloying taste of raw flesh, hot and slick down my throat. The house is clean, warm and framed pictures line the mantel, so far removed from the reality of my existence - and the trigger, cool metal under my finger.

A decision - pull the trigger, or not?

To understand this whole mess, I guess I should start at the beginning.


	2. Chapter 2

I was born and raised in this city. My dad was a cop and so was his dad, so I guess it's in my blood. My mom was a school teacher and I was their only child, the apple of their eye. I used to play soccer, rode my bicycle, lost my virginity in the backseat of an Omni while watching the planes lift-off from the international airport. I loved this city. I took a bunch of college courses after graduating, mostly criminology, some forensic science stuff - I knew from age six that I wanted to be a cop, like my old man, except I also wanted to be a detective. When I joined the Force, I was about twenty-one then, my dad was there to see me get my badge. I knew he was proud, I could tell by the gleam in his eye. 

When he got gunned down in some crossfire between gangs, my mother was devastated - I had to be strong for her. Even if my dad had been old-fashioned, he gave me, a girl, a fair shake - I remember him telling me - _"Ronnie, if anything ever happens to me, you have to take care of your mom. You're part of the Force, you have to be the strong one."_ I organized the funeral, took care of all the details, let my mom grieve. It took me awhile to fully process his death, though, some nights I'd think I'd smell his cologne, hear his voice - _"What do you hear, Ronnie?"_ Nothing but the rain, Dad.

Anyway, I did my three years as a regular constable and managed to get promoted to corporal, worked a couple of crime scenes, mostly doing scene security, watching the ERU, sorry, that's Evidence Recovery Unit, work. As I moved up in seniority, started taking night classes, went back the Academy for training, I started working with the ERU as well. Mostly the shitty work, like clearing a safe zone - middle of summer, in the sweltering heat, head to toe in the Suit, on your hands and feet making sure you don't miss a single cigarette butt? Not exactly the most glamorous image, especially the hell humidity raises on my hair, but being part of the team, helping solve a crime, was worth the chigger bites and heat rashes. I could tell you some pretty crazy stories.

About five years in, I get promoted again, to Sergeant and active duty in the Serious Crimes Division, the night that- it happened. We were celebrating at the pub down the street from the station, some buddies of mine, colleagues. It was sort of a duo-purpose celebration, my partner was going on maternity leave and we were wishing her and her baby well. I was going to my mom's afterwards, and she wasn't drinking, so the rest of them were three sheets to the wind for us. I stuck around after things started winding down so that I could make sure everyone who'd been drinking heavily got safely into a cab or otherwise had a ride. Afterwards, I headed to the parking lot where I'd left my car. It was pretty empty by then, week night. I remember- the fluorescent lights were busted, flickering slowly and then quickly and then being on for awhile, then off, like Morse code. I wish I paid more attention, maybe it was a warning that I could have heeded. I- I heard my Dad's voice - _"What do you hear, Ronnie?"_ I picked up my pace, got to the car and looked down, and there was figure behind me and I whirled around, keys in hand, ready to ram them into their face.

Fuck Them all, they used my father's face. I took his hand - and then I was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

I- I don't really remember much between- that and waking up in the alley. I don't really want to, because what I was, what they turned me into, what I still feel and crave, I hate it, I hate it because- because I love it, the taste of raw flesh, the still beating heart of some prey that I hunted down, tore the throat out of, their eyes- human eyes- 

So-

I woke up in the alley, it was five years later, five years of my life - vanished. Stole some clothes from dumpster, an only slightly objectionable hoodie and a pair of extra-large sweatpants. I tried to go back to my old apartment, but it was rented out to someone else. I tried going to my mom's house, but it had been sold. I saw my face in the mirror for the first time and I saw- two faces, one on top of the other. One was my old face, a little bit worn and haunted, the other- the other face scared me, all angles and sharp teeth and predatory, like the faces of all the hardened criminals I'd ever arrested all coalesced into a single expression - hunger. And everywhere I looked, and every person I looked at, was all prey, walking bags of flesh waiting to be torn from the bone and devoured.

About three days later of wandering aimlessly and living on the streets, this old man approaches me. Now I know better, he wasn't that old, just that whatever happened to him in that Hell we were both abducted to made him look like wizened, like the life had been sucked out of him. But back then, I just assumed he was another homeless crazy, too broken to function in society but unable or unwilling to accept care. He looked at me, long and hard in the eye, and stretched out his hand and said - "I can explain everything that happened to you."

And he did, about Them, the "True Fae", Arcadia or Faerie as some call it, the Hedge, about how our experiences chew us up and spit us out until we're unrecognizable to ourselves. That we're so different now nothing in the world can really relate except others that suffered the same experience. He called us "changelings" and told me that I can never really go back to my old life, that even if I hadn't been gone for so long, They often left something to take our place. He called them "fetches", copies of us. He said we either had to make a new life or deal with it - it being the fetch. I asked him what he had done with his and he never answered, just went to his stove and made us tea. He said I could stay with him until I was ready to deal with changeling society. He gave me clean clothes, a roof over my head, I owe him a lot for those first few weeks. I think I might have been dead otherwise.

Then one day, while I was getting the paper for my friend, I saw my face on the page.

Except it wasn't me - too clean, too clear-eyed, to have the Hunger gnawing at the pit of her belly. This must have been what he called my "fetch".

She was in the news, winning some kind of award for community service and seeing her face, my face, in the photograph was like having someone sucker punch me in the gut. She had commendations from the Commissioner, she had a husband and a toddler, a little townhouse in a nice part of town, she had - everything. Everything that should have been mine. 

That was supposed to be MY life! MINE!

The monster in me reared up, territorial, and I remembered that my friend kept a .22 around. For safety. 

She had my life - and I would take it back.


	4. Chapter 4

It is raining, everything a gloomy, grim haze, the streets empty, most people taking shelter indoors. I'm soaked to the bone, waiting amongst the hedges across from the townhouse of the Other Me, my Fetch. I grip the pistol hidden in the pouch of my hoodie, stroking the trigger. 

My life.

Her car, a slick silver shadow, moves down the road and pulls up to the driveway. I slip across the street as she slides out from the driver's seat, alone. She wears a long black wool coat, her hair, my hair, a golden halo around her head. She seems distracted - good, it'll make this easier. As she goes to the front door, unlocking it, I make my move, pushing the gun against the small of her back. Immediately she freezes as the door slowly swings open. "Get in the house, nice and slow."

We take the first few steps into the foyer and just as I cross the threshold, the twitch of her arm communicates to me her next action. How can she help but telegraph these things? After all, she IS me, without the experience of an eternity in a place where people were prey. As she swings her elbow back, hard, I twist around it, grabbing her by the back of the neck and slamming her face into the wall. There is a satisfying crunch and a smear of blood left on the paint. As she reels, I kick the door shut behind me then I drive my heel to the back of her knees, dropping her to the floor.

My gun is trained between her eyes, as she stares up at me. Her face, it is so identical to mine, it's astonishing. Even down to the little scar at my left eyebrow, barely noticeable, the scar I got when I fell off the monkey bars in elementary school. "Look, I don't know who you are, but you don't have to do this." Classic hostage negotiation opener, keep the perp talking. I don't take the bait, but I can feel the monster in me rearing up for the kill. I wonder if Fetches taste human, if they have meat on their bones, if I can grind her bones to gristle. "What do you want? Maybe I can help-"

"My LIFE!" My hand is shaking from rage. "I WANT MY LIFE BACK!"

"Maybe, if you could explain how-"

"SHUT UP!" Screaming, I push back the hood and I can see the shock in her eyes, our mirror faces. "You're just a puppet, a thing! You're a FUCKING THING! YOU STOLE MY LIFE!" She just stares at me.

And then she says, so softly - "I'm sorry. I don't understand, but I'm sorry."

I grab her by the hair, stepping behind her, pressing the gun against the back of her skull - execution-style, finger twitching at the trigger. The pictures that line her mantel - happy smiling faces, her husband, her kid, summers at the beach, autumns kicking piles of leaves in the park. My mother, five years aged, smiling out at me, of all the things I missed, I missed my mother the most. Her presence at every Christmas, making date balls, her needlepoint, her handmade greeting cards written in that shaky writing of hers, courtesy of the stroke she had when she was fifty. 

I notice that the Fetch is dressed in all black and comment, in my broken hoarse voice, "How appropriate, you're dressed for your funeral."

"My mother's funeral."

I pause, unable to process her words. "What?

"It was my mother's funeral today. We just buried her." I don't think she's crying, because I didn't cry at Dad's funeral, because she's trying to keep cool and keep calm, but I can hear it, the pain in her voice, a woman on the verge of breaking down - two women, one already broken. Why do I hear real pain in her voice?

"She WASN'T YOUR MOTHER!" My voice is trembling, I'm shaking. The fetch doesn't flinch from the gun. "She was my mother. How- how did she die?"

"Breast cancer, it had already spread by the time we found out. Chemo didn't work, just made her more sick."

"I don't believe you."

"I wish I were lying." She replies, edging away from me and sitting against the wall. "Then Kacey would still have her grandmother. Her room's still upstairs, Mom's room, she was having trouble on her own, in the old house, so we offered to take care of her here. Couple days ago, Lee comes home and she's gone."

I swing my arm and the photographs go flying off the mantel, the glass shattering against the floor. The fetch winces but her eyes are still trained on my other hand, the one with the gun. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

"No." She brushes splinters from her black dress. "Long lost twin? No, I- I've had my own questions about- everything. But every time I think I wanted answers, I stopped looking. I had this case last year, right out of a Stephen King book, this man is arrested under suspicion of murdering a bunch of hookers off of East Hastings. We've got him down to his DNA and credible eyewitnesses, putting him at the scene. Except he's got this airtight alibi. As it turned out, he had a twin brother that he never knew anything about. So, maybe I don't think you're crazy. Maybe we were just lied to." She reaches out her hand to touch a picture of Mom and she's trying not to cry. "And now, I'll never know."

 _"What do you hear, Ronnie?"_ Nothing but the rain, Dad. Memories surface briefly, the texture of raw flesh torn from ligaments, the snap of a whip barbed by poisoned stingers against my skin, Their laughter, like the ringing of bells, the flickering of fluorescent lights as I walk to a car I never reach.

"We were lied to. More than you realize." 

"I- I'm not ready to know." She meets my gaze, trying to blink back tears. "But I'm not your enemy."

I shrug, backing away from the living room. It's probably a mistake, leaving her like this, the paranoid cop part of me, or maybe it's the inhuman monster that hungers to rip at her meat, screams for me not to walk away. To at least put a bullet in her head before leaving, even if I don't stay. But I can't. Because I look in her eyes and I know that she is Veronica Marlowe now.

I take one long last look at the warmth of the house, the mirror of my life as it could have been. Then, I walk away.

Doesn't matter, I'm no longer that girl.


End file.
